On my next expedition to Brighton Beach, I wanted to discover some smells and tastes that describe this area in a nutshell. I was stubbornly determined to experience the famous Slavic pirozhki, a popular dessert that is usually eaten at any time during the day. I had to first find a street vendor that was selling this delicious dessert. When I spotted an old lady selling them on the corner of a street, I started to approach her stand. Wow! The smell was something to die for. The air was saturated with the smells of my childhood. For instance, when you bake something in the oven and you take it out, the smell rushes out and overwhelms you. This was the same experience that I felt when I walked towards the stand. I looked at the type of pirozhki the lady was selling and asked for a strawberry filled one. I had to pay $3.50 for a large one, but boy was it good. The strawberry jam that was skillfully made by this lady erupted into my mouth after I took a large bite. The outside of the pirozhok was a little bit cold, but the inside was still warm, indicating that it was recently made. Then I went for a walk underneath the MTA train tracks. The first thing I noticed is that the train system in place is close to a hundred-years-old because of how poorly taken care of it is. The paint on the stands, which support the weight of the trains that are passing above, is peeling off in layers and the metal foundation is starting to corrode. To make it worse the wood underneath the track lines was covered in layers of trash and looked like it was slightly rotting. I know that the MTA covers all of the boroughs of New York City, but I was amazed to see how deteriorated the largest means of transportation in Brighton Beach was. I noticed that MTA workers were busy repairing this integral part of the community. I smelled fresh paint because the workers were removing decaying layers of metal and covering the structural parts with paint to prevent oxidation. I asked one of the MTA workers how often the subway system gets fixed and re-painted. The worker told me that in the best case scenario the train tracks are changed every 10 years and most of the paint is removed and replaced with a fresh coat. However, he told me that the process of revitalizing the decaying subway system takes more than a year because of the length of the train tracks and difficulty of reaching the platform which is more than 100 feet in the air. After my investigation of the subway system and the interview with the MTA worker I went over to a family-owned store to have lunch. I looked at the menu and I saw that it was divided into two main categories: American food and Russian food. To me this demonstrated the types of customers that this restaurant receives. The American menu consisted of foods like a cheeseburger with french-fries, one of their popular choices with teenage customers. The Russian menu had a list of soups, main courses, and desserts that originated from the Slavic countries. One of the small details that I noticed about the menu was that even though the menu had two categories that were in English, there was still a Russian translation underneath for customers who do not speak English. I decided to order pelmini, a traditional Russian dish similar to dumplings that consists of a filling wrapped in thin, unleavened dough. Russian dumplings are slightly unlike Chinese dumplings because they are smaller, contain different fillings, and are served with different sides. My melted-butter-covered pelmini contained beef and were served with cold sour cream. They smelled like they were well-cooked and something my mother would make me for dinner. The restaurant wasn’t very big, but it was family owned. I found out that a Ukrainian family owns and operates it as a family business. They make every ingredient on site, and they make the pelmini by hand. I interviewed the waitress, Olga, and she told me that she is part of the family and everyone contributes to the business. Her dad buys the fresh meat and flour; her grandparents do the cooking; her mom is the cashier; and Olga serves the food. It was typical of many of the stores in Brighton Beach to be entirely operated by large families as I’ve discovered. The next location that I visited was the Brooklyn Public Library because I wanted to see who goes there to read or take books. The library was very clean on the inside because it smelled like someone mopped the floors and the atmosphere was very quiet. Inside the library I saw mainly elders who looked like they were in their late 60s. Surprisingly, I saw no teenagers or young adults in any section of the library. It could be that many younger individuals use computers to research information, unlike older folks who may not have access to computers or don’t know how to use one. Still, it’s always good to have a functioning library in a community. I also noticed that there was a public swimming pool near the boardwalk where people could get free swimming lessons as a brochure stated. Lastly, I saw that there was a large child’s park and a basketball park, again near the boardwalk. Some areas of the parks didn’t smell well because there were animal feces on the ground. The lack of care for sanitation during my second expedition to Brighton Beach was just as obvious during my first expedition.
Here is a dish of the beef pelmini that I ordered at the family-operated restaurant. They smelled great!
This is a picture of the Brooklyn Public Library, one of the public buildings that everyone is able to visit.
This is a photo of MTA workers fixing the important subway system that runs through Brighton Beach.
